Art And Science

Arts projects in the Transition Network

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

transition-articles-headerThe Transition Network is a growing network of over a thousand communities around the world. The network “supports community-led responses to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy, building resilience and happiness.” The summer issue of the magazine Transition Free Press, which was published on 1 May 2013, contains four articles about arts projects that relate to the topics of sustainability and ecology in various ways. In summary:


Art and Science meet at new Bee Festival

The Louth Festival of the Bees, organised by Transition Louth in the United Kingdom in May 2013, combines biological sciences with an art exhibition, exploring “the relationships between the aesthetic and the rational”.

“We may not, single-handed, be able to stop war, cure disease, end hunger, or save the planet, but we can, each of us, plant some flowers that give insects a better chance and make our world a little more beautiful,” writes Biff Vernon, a teacher who grows vegetables and flowers in Lincolnshire, and is, according to the magazine editor, “attempting to save the planet one Facebook post at a time.”

“If we are to make the transition to a truly sustainable post-industrial society, protection of biodiversity must be an urgent priority. The festival aims to raise awareness of biodiversity, focussing particularly on wildflowers and all their pollinators,” Biff Vernon writes.

Louth Festival of Bees includes a Family Fun Day, Conference Day and Art Exhibition with stalls, exhibitions, children’s activities, workshops, talks about wild bees, wild flowers, beekeeping and art.

transitiontownlouth.org.uk/bees.html


Anne-Marie Culhane and the art of ‘Abundance’

Anne-Marie Culhane, a performer, activist and catalyser of projects who lives in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, tells about the projects ‘Abundance’ and ‘The Diary Keepers’, about the festival ‘Grow Sheffield’, and about exploring the dynamic relationship between the artist and the community:

When Anne-Marie Culhane talks about Art, it is not as it is commonly understood, a commodity to be bought and owned, but a narrative co-created by people seeking to bring the earth and belonging into an urbanised culture.

“I’ve always been uncomfortable with the perception of an artist as a solitary creator who’s outside society,” she tells Transition Free Press.

To be resilient in the face of ecological and economic challenges, communities need to be adaptive and collaborative. As climate scientists admit, “we’re not managing to communicate properly”. Because what inspires us to change are not dry facts, but celebration, creativity, and most of all, belonging:

“We can’t go into any meaningful thinking about the future unless we are examining how we live now, and the diversity of the way different people in the community live now: really looking, taking time, slowing down, observing our place within natural cycles, seeing what we share. So we can say: OK, this is where we’re at. From this point we can look forward.”

Anne-Marie Culhane developed a project, ‘Diary Keepers’, to engage people into thinking about these things by keeping a diary for a month, where they would be trying to answer questions about what it is like to live now.

For Anne-Marie Culhane everything began when she came across climate change as a student of geography: “I was overawed by what it meant,” she said. Characteristically her first piece of work did not appear in a gallery, but in a city park in Leeds – twelve installations, actions and performances during one year.

“I began to ask: How can I support people to grow their own food, to be more knowledgeable about what they’re eating, to start seed-saving and seed-sharing and using organic and permaculture methods which nourish the land and communities? This where the main energy for ‘Grow Sheffield’ came from.

The idea was to hold a big season of events around harvest, giving people from different backgrounds lots of points of access – some creative, some more practical. We had guerrilla gardening in the city centre, a film screening and open space session in a local cinema, poetry walks and Allotment Soup, a celebration of allotment culture, with artists taking up mini-residencies on different allotments.”

Her creative project ‘Abundance’ started from an idea about harvesting unwanted fruit from street trees, but it also quickly took foraging and growing stuff to another level and became about doing and being with people.

www.amculhane.co.uk
www.charlotteducann.blogspot.com


Firing up the imagination

Jeppe D. Graugaard writes about ‘The Telling’ which he describes as “a new kind of grassroots, power-down, artistic event which draws on various forms of storytelling, performance, music and craft to explore what living through a time of transition means.

“Born in the imagination of Warren Draper, The Telling is inspired by The Dark Mountain Project and created on a DIY ethos as a reaction against the debilitating effect of the entertainment industry on folk culture.

The enchanting performance of Mr. Fox is just one of many that evening set in the post-apocalyptic Church View courtyard, which is adorned by a large mural by street artist Phlegm, depicting an archer sitting in a giant horn shooting down human bones tied to floating balloons. And the evening programme is just the culmination of a series of events and workshops that ran throughout the day: a pop-up cinema, the Sheffield City Giants (15 ft large puppets), bread-making, make-do-and-mend, a singing workshop, a talk on peace, and my absolute favourite: making iron in a clay foundry.

This diverse mix of activities and performances makes The Telling a place to be inspired and to learn practical skills at the same time.”

More information, pictures and videos of The Telling can be seen online atforthetelling.wordpress.com.

Jeppe D. Graugaard is a writer and researcher at UEA, with an interest in grassroots movements and projects. More of his writing is available on patternwhichconnects.com


Arts book in the making: mapping arts and ecological living

Fifteen artists and writers gathered at a Writing Residency at Lumb Bank in Yorkshire to lay the first tracks down for a groundbreaking workbook – mapping ways in which the arts inspire a different way of living within the ecological limits of the planet, reported Lucy Neal.

“At Lumb Bank we glimpsed an everyday ‘art of living’ which now remains to build on and articulate over the next few months, as the book and the project come together.”


You can read these four articles in full here:

Transition Free Press – Issue 2, Summer 2013 – published on 1 May 2013:
issuu.com/transitionfreepress


More about the Transition Network

Transition and literature

“Stories shape the way that we act,” says Shaun Chamberlin, author of ‘The Transition Timeline’, in this interview which is an excerpt from the film â€˜In Transition 1.0: From oil dependence to to local resilience’ from March 2012.


A transition art piece

About the art piece Oil Memorial
Another excerpt from the same film, ‘In Transition 1.0’.


• Transition Towns channel on YouTube
www.youtube.com/user/TransitionTowns

• Documentary film from April 2012
The Transition Movement – An Introduction

• TEDx presentation about the Transition Towns and Transition Network
“My Town in Transition: Rob Hopkins at TEDxExeter” â€“ 1 May 2012

• The Transition Network’s home page:
www.transitionnetwork.org

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Powered by WPeMatico

NEW RIJKSMUSEUM ILLUMINATED WITH PHILIPS LED LIGHTING

Shining new light on old masters

The world famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam re-opened on April 13th, offering the public access to some of the world’s most famous paintings including Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. The €375 million renovation project, which took ten years to complete, includes the world’s most advanced LED lighting system in a museum. Created by Philips, the system was designed to closely mimic the colour rendition of natural daylight, allowing visitors to see details of masterpieces that were previously not visible.

Using 750,000 LEDs and lighting over 7,500 artefacts across 9,500m2 of gallery space, Philips worked closely with the museum staff, the museum’s architects Wilmotte & Associés and Cruz y Ortiz to create a modern solution to the challenge of museum lighting: how to present the works of art in the best light possible whilst conserving and protecting them for future generations.

The result uses the latest LED technology from Philips to offer an overall effect similar to natural daylight. Moving away from the heavy amber tint that is characteristic of conventional museum lighting, Philips has used light with a neutral white tone that offers a greater range of colour visibility, giving an effect that is similar to viewing the painting in ‘high definition’. It meets international standards for art conservation and also emits no ultraviolet light and hardly any infrared light.

“We are very proud of working with the Rijksmuseum on this innovative and monumental renovation,” said Rogier van der Heide, Chief Design Officer and Vice President at Philips Lighting. “The lighting solution is the result of a unique collaborative effort with the Rijksmuseum and the architects, using Philips’ knowledge of the art and science of illumination to achieve a quality of light that truly brings out the detail of each masterpiece.”

World’s most advanced lighting solution in a museum of fine art

The new LED lighting illuminates artworks that date back to the Middle Ages. In total, the lighting illuminates 7,500 artworks spanning several centuries. Philips’ lighting solution consists of ¾ of a million LEDs, including 3,800 LED spots, more than 1.8 kilometers of LED lighting the ceiling and an advanced LED lighting control system via a mobile application for museum employees to use.

Philips’ LEDs light the museums public spaces including the shop, the atriums and the restaurant, as well as the outdoor area and building façade. Philips worked with the Rijksgebouwendienst (the Government Buildings Agency part of the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations, the owner of the building) to realize plans for the outdoor lighting.

rjiksmuseum_infographic_1.5 -1

COAL Prize Art and Environment 2013: Adaptation

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

CALL FOR ENTRIES

Application deadline: February 28th, 2013

http://www.projetcoal.org/coal/category/prix-coal-2013/

The Coal Prize Art and Environment rewards each year a project by a contemporary artist involved in environmental issues. Its goals are to promote and support the vital role which art and creation play in raising awareness, supporting concrete solutions and encouraging a culture of ecology. The winner is selected out of ten short-listed by a jury of well-known specialists in art, research, ecology and sustainable development.

The 2013 Coal Prize will reward entries that focus on adaptation issues. The award of the 2013 Coal Prize will take place in spring 2013 at Le Laboratoire, a private art center specializing in the blending of art and science.

The prize carries an award of 10,000 Euros. Launched in 2010 by the French organization Coal, the coalition for art and sustainable development, the Coal Prize is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, theFrench Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, the National Centre of Fine Arts (CNAP), Le Laboratoire, PwC and a private benefactor.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Powered by WPeMatico

COAL Prize Art and environment 2013 – Call for proposals

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Theme: Adaption

The Coal Prize Art and Environment rewards each year a project by a contemporary artist involved in environmental issues. Its goals are to promote and support

upport the vital role which art and creation play in raising awareness, supporting concrete solutions and encouraging a culture of ecology. The winner is selected out of ten short-listed by a jury of well-known specialists in art, research, ecology and sustainable development

The 2013 Coal Prize will reward entries that focus on adaptation issues.

The award of the 2013 Coal Prize will take place in spring 2013 at Le Laboratoire, a private art center specializing in the blending of art and science.

Application deadline: February 28th, 2013

For more information, click here.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

Out Now CSPA Q8: International Issue – The Sea is Rising

CSPA Quarterly #8 is now available for purchase through MagCloud. Members, your print and digital editions will find their ways to you shortly!.

Our third international issue focuses on projects that call attention to topics that extend well beyond national borders. With a focus on interdependence, and an abundance of contributions about water, ice, and sea rise, this issue addresses the space between national borders- our oceans. Featuring work from Moe Beitiks, Chantal Bilodeau, Eve Mosher, Michael Pinksy, Christopher Robbins, and Liz Ward.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

UPCOMING ISSUES

Q9 Intersection: Science and Culture

We’ve been noticing a flurry of work that exists at the intersection between art and science. This includes installation and performance pieces that challenge scientific claims, and work that utilizes science to prove a point, or to reach a new audience. It’s about fact-imbedded art, or emotions and reasoning co-existing.

CSPA Quarterly 1.0

Our tenth issue anniversary! For this issue, we will breathe new life into our pilot issue, and will check in with those participating artists.

Plasticities Sciences Arts

This post comes to you from Cultura21

“Plasticities Sciences Arts” is an association based in France, operating at the transdisciplinary crossroads of art and science. As expressed by its president, Marc-Williams Debono, “the PSA research group aims at opening new fields of interaction between sciences, arts and humanities. The group has its origins in 1994 when it established a Transdisciplinary network of researchers focusing on the nature of evolutionary processes. The identity of the group is founded on both knowledge and human experience as on the suggestion of the concept of plasticity. The latter is considered to be the basic principle underlying the organization of any life form, art or idea.”

The group’s website contains valuable online resources including news items, activities and publications, and the online Journal  Plastir, which is on open access (i.e. freely accessible). The latest issue of Plastir (25) was released in December 2011.

The website (in English and in French) of “Plasticities Sciences Arts” and Plastir is accessible at: http://plasticites-sciences-arts.org/

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Screenings of An Ecology of Mind

Screenings with Nora Bateson of her film An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson
London, Manchester, Bradford, Bristol, Dartington, Glasgow, Edinburgh

15 – 27 February 2012

“Tell me a story” … of life, art and science, of systems and survival

 Gregory Bateson’s way of thinking – seeing the world as relationships, connections and patterns – continues to influence and provoke new thinking about human social life, about ecology, technology, art, design and health. Nora Bateson, Gregory’s youngest daughter, introduces Bateson’s ideas to new audiences in her film An Ecology of Mind, using the metaphor of a relationship between father and daughter, and footage of Bateson’s talks.

Each screening, too, hosts a discussion between Nora and a wide range of people working in depth with Gregory Bateson’s ideas: artists, architects, organisation theorists, action researchers, ecological activists, mental health practitioners, scientists, urban designers, cyberneticians.

These screenings and discussions show a way of thinking that crosses fields of knowledge and experience, one that can lead out of the ecological crisis and towards a more sound way of living.

News items could feature all or any one of the following angles: culture and science, cities and ecology, biology and communication, family health and systemic therapies, technologies and religion.

Nora Bateson is available for interview; please contact Wallace Heim, as above.

Gregory Bateson, British-American anthropologist, biologist, systems thinker (1904 – 1980),  invited people to look at a thing – an earthworm, a number sequence, a tree, a definition of addiction, anything at all – by seeing the interdependencies that connect them and the processes beneath the structures. He believed, “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way people think.”

Tour dates:

15 & 16 Feb – Manchester

17 Feb – Glasgow

20 Feb – Bradford

21 Feb – Bristol

22 Feb – Dartington

23 & 24 Feb – Edinburgh

27 February – London

UK Press:

Interview with Nora Bateson by Rachel Freeman on The Ecologist online:

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/culture_change/1198372/an_ecology_of_mind_film_interprets_a_life_of_unconventional_thought.html

“For me, watching Nora Bateson’s film was overwhelming. Her biggest achievement is in explaining abstract concepts in a clear way. Until now, Batesons’ work has been largely inaccessible outside the academic community. With this film, this is bound to change”

Jan van Boeckel, Resurgence, Jan-Feb 2012

Gobal Press:

“The double bind that we now face is this: on the one hand, we want to preserve our natural environment; on the other, everything we do to grow our economy and preserve our standard of living disrupts the natural environment and our relationships with it. Nora, like her father, suggests that we must raise our consciousness and learn to think in new ways to escape our pathology of wrong thinking…Nora Bateson presents viewers not only with an intellectually challenging and inspiring work of art, but also with a glimpse of evanescent hope.”

Marilyn Wedge, Huffington Post, 13 October 2011

“Gregory Bateson taught us how to stop having the most fundamental old ideas: the static, separating, reductionist fictions that dis-integrate an integrated world. Nora Bateson’s beautiful portrait of her father’s key insights is a stunningly effective antidote for a new generation that now needs his wisdom more than ever.”

Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute

An Ecology of Mind is a spell-binding, lyrical, and very important film…”

Rex Weyler – Co-Founder, Greenpeace International

Awards for the film:

  • Gold for Best Documentary, Spokane International Film Festival, 2011
  • Audience Award Winner, Best Documentary, Santa Cruz Film Festival, 2011
  • Winner, Media Ecology Association, John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis, 2011

CFP: The Two Cultures: Visual Art and Science c.1800-2011

The Two Cultures: Visual Art and Science c.1800-2011
Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference, 26 April 2012

History of Art Department, University of York

It is bizarre how little of twentieth-century science has been assimilated into twentieth century art. C.P. Snow, 1959

In his 1959 lecture “The Two Cultures” C.P. Snow asserted that the intellectual life of western society was increasingly being split into two polar groups: the sciences, and the humanities. The notion that visual artists and scientists are two entirely isolated strata of human activity and experience has proliferated since the nineteenth century, and continues to plague academic institutions and political policy today. The term “scientist” was coined in 1834 as a means of designating those who worked professionally in the various sciences. The “scientist” was described by direct analogy to the artist; suggesting that these now seemingly dichotomous areas of scholarship were in fact intended to exist in direct relationship to one another.

This conference seeks to challenge Snow’s separatist assertion, and explore the ways in which visual artists have acknowledged, appropriated and assimilated the ideas and theories of the ever-expanding field of “science” in their work since c.1800, the moment at which the professionalization of the sciences engendered a seemingly irrevocable split in the academy. As a result, we hope to recoup a sense of interdisciplinary fluidity amongst the international fields of visual arts and sciences, in order to build as complex and nuanced a picture as possible of the exchanges and interconnections between the “two cultures” over the past two centuries.We invite abstracts for papers of 20minutes by postgraduates that address the theme of relationships between the visual arts and the sciences 1800-2011. We welcome submissions from students working across the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, and applied sciences, but ask that the papers specifically address such relationships from the perspective of visual or material culture. Possible themes for discussion might include, but are by no means limited to:

  • Collaborations and communications between artists and scientists.
  • Representation and/or use of scientific concepts, vocabularies or technologies by an artist in the creation of works.
  • Modern medicine and representations of the body.
  • Representations of warfare, machinery and technological development – their physical and psychological effects/treatments.
  • The influence of post-Darwinian structures/theories on the visual realm.
  • The effect of/responses to new media such as photography, film, and internet.
  • The advent of cybernetics and computers, from early experimental use to contemporary digital media.
  • The ways in which the relationship between art and science intersects with issues of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity.
  • The attitude of art education to science and vice versa.- How established genres such as landscape and still-life have responded to scientific developments.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. We ask that applicants also submit a brief biography in addition to their abstract. The deadline for submission is February 24th 2012. All submissions should be sent to Kirstin Donaldson and Robert Sutton at TwoCultures2012@gmail.com along with any questions regarding the conference or abstracts.

Anne Brodie’s Bee Box

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Bee Box, new work by Anne Brodie, is one part of a public art exhibition across eight European countries, curated by C-Lab.  Anne Brodie works across art and science, having studied Biology and gone on to complete her MA at the Royal College.  She has received a Wellcome Trust Arts Award as well as the British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council Artists and Writers Fellowship.

“The BEE BOX reminds us of the invisible disappearance of our pollinators. Bees, like us, form communities of workers capable of generating intelligent social interactions. Brodie offers a poetic reflection on the fragility of these communities.”

1st September 2011 – 1st November 2011

Bishop’s Square, Spitalfields
Brushfield Street, London, E1 6AA

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Symposium: “Animal Ecologies in Visual Culture”

This post comes to you from Cultura21

By Ronja Röckemann

Reposted from: www.antennae.org.uk/Symposium

The symposium on October 8th 2011 at University College London proposes an exploration of artistic practices involved with animals and environments. In the recent re-surfacing of the animal in contemporary art, emphasis has been given to mammals, mainly because of the most immediate relational opportunities that these animals offer to us. However, a number of very interesting artists has been recently trying to bridge the abyss between ‘us’ and more ‘taxonomically remote’ creatures through the use of art and science as active interfaces. This new focus reveals the interconnectedness between humans, amphibians, reptiles and insects, and the environments in which we all live. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the symposium aims at facilitating a dialogue between artists, scientists and academics interested in informing wider audiences through visual communication.

Speakers Include: Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey / Ron Broglio / Maja and Reuben Fowkes /Rikke Hansen / London Fieldworks / Joyce Salisbury / Linda Williams. See www.antennae.org.uk for registration.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21